Toughie this. I saw a friend who's Little L is about a month younger than Little C - it hadn't been easy for the pair of them, from pain to bad advice to medical persons discussing what to do infront of her and not talking to her. Then Little L had tongue-tie, and lost a lot of weight due to this. Now I'm no expert but I watched my friend bottle feed Little L and really felt like pointing out that the poor little bit wasn't getting a good amount of milk because of the way Little L was being held. Now I'd lay any baby across my lap with their head in the crook of one arm and tip the bottle up so there was no air in the teat - Little L was being held sitting upright (legs being held between mum's) and the bottle was being held pushing Little L's head back but only around half the teat was full of milk- and winding was not attempted for very long as Little L was crying.
And then when it was nappy time the pair disappeared for 20 minutes or so and once when they returned I was informed that Little L had put her feet and hands in the nappy and spread the contents around. I used to watch my mum doing changes and she'd hold the baby's feet inbetween the fingers on one hand and change/wipe/etc with the other. But how do you pass these tips on without making a new mum feel even worse - plus Little L is (apparently) quite a wailer, enough so to drive my friend to tears. I can understand if Little L is constantly crying if its hunger because more air is sucked in than milk and winding is not very good. But how can you tell someone this without upsetting or offending?
2 comments:
Ooh very tough one.
I think I'd probably approach it (very gently!) by saying "ooh, I was having awful trouble with cleaning C and I found that such-and-such helped/my mum suggested I do this, blahblah, and it really worked..." as a sort of conversational thing rather than giving advice directly?
Obviously you don't want to tread on her toes or make her feel inadequate, but by the same token, addressing the feeding/winding especially would help her so much. :(
I remember the crying until I was crying myself, poor lass.
My advice would be to just model your way, so ask if you could try feeding Little L. And then do it your way and with any luck the Mum will pay attention. I do sympathise though. It's very tough to help someone who may already be feeling a bit inadequate. Abster x
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